Popcorning Parts by Amy Marques: A Conversation Between Claudia Monpere and Kim Steutermann Rogers

Kim Steutermann Rogers

Do you remember when Amy showed us PARTS? We were in the lobby of a hotel during AWP, a long Starbucks line behind us. We’d been chatting for probably an hour, getting to know each other in person for the first time after meeting in numerous Smokelong workshops. I remember packing up my stuff, slipping on my coat for the walk to the convention center when Amy pulled out the book and said something like, “I want to show you something I’ve been working on,” and she flipped through the pages. I’ll never forget our reactions. At the very same time, we both leaned forward, enchanted, reaching for the book.

Claudia Monpere

I remember that moment vividly. And what came before. I think the three of us were stunned by how immediately we connected when we started talking. Then you suggested we each take 5 minutes to zip through meaningful parts of our lives. That AWP was magical for me because of the connection the three of us formed. I remember Amy shouting “Claudia” when I was on the escalator. She recognized me from my hair. And I remember you kidnapping the Smokelong squirrel and the fun chaos that ensued. 

With many of these poems, Amy painted images of women alone. Any thoughts about that?

Kim

Well, as a woman, this felt perfectly natural to me! But you’re absolutely right: Women. Women alone. I think it directly speaks to a theme of the collection—that of a woman becoming. For example, page 109, “to be understood and accepted.”

But perhaps more directly, 72: Yet her face also bore the markings of age. I don’t know why. I’m not the girl. I am not. Finally, a friend or a lover had come to know the woman. Now, strangely, a beauty.” 

Claudia

Yes, a woman becoming!  I love the poems you mention. It’s interesting that Amy’s first painting of a solitary woman—58 and 59— reads “A woman’s solitary pleasures/ cultivated little quiet time.” Which acknowledges how little solitary, quiet time most women have; it’s something I think most women long for. And I love that this woman isn’t DOING— she’s simply sitting, perhaps gazing at something, perhaps thinking. Perhaps beginning to become!

Every time I read/view this book, I see more themes and recurring images. This seems central to this entire project: “I succeed somewhat trying to work on complex web of themes.”(13)

I notice how many of the words Amy uses are positive, and this makes me think this book also explores how to live a good life. Dreams, love, home, magic, hope— these words occur over and over again.  And when there are negative words, it’s like Amy is talking back to them. This one which I love so much: “. . . So lost. So wrong. Duped. Defeat. . . Then she remembered what she was. Look out.” (147) 

Other times with negative words, Amy brings in laughter: “fashionable acts of doom” (162); “laughed and refused horror” (167).

Kim

I love your deep dive into words, especially when the few negative words are reversed. Maybe instead of the theme of woman becoming, it’s really woman overcoming. I like the implications behind that.

Have you ever read The Party at Jack’s? I admit I’d never heard of it until Amy presented her altered book to us. A quick internet search makes it sound like a cultural criticism of the Jazz Age before the Great Depression, a la The Great Gatsby. An interesting choice of a book for Amy to erase. Or maybe not. I haven’t written any erasures myself, but it does seem like a good way to re-invent a book or, in this case, an era. The other thing about Wolfe is that he’s known for autobiographical fiction, and reading between the lines, I can’t help but think these erasures hum with autobiographical moments much like poetry.

Claudia

I never read The Party at Jack’s, but piggy-backed your internet search. I learned that Wolfe skewered the artist Alexander Calder in “Piggy Logan’s Circus.”  This took me down a rabbit hole about Calder whose work I love. Here’s a 5 minute   video of him performing his miniature circus.  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t6jwnu8Izy0   I felt Amy’s presence going down this rabbit hole. I love how curious she is and how her curiosity leads to all kinds of cool art, ideas, and language. 

You put it perfectly, Kim, when you say that Amy’s erasures “hum with autobiographical moments much like poetry.” I randomly opened her book just now and here’s what I see: “And now—yes, even now—mad with hope. Unfortunately.”  (65)

Mad with hope sounds like Amy—and it’s hope that doesn’t ignore conflict but chooses to focus on connection. But I wonder about “Unfortunately” which Amy added rather than it being part of an erasure. Maybe a nod to people who think hope is denial or illusion? I love how this book is infused with hope!

Kim

I like the experience of just flipping through the pages to see what I notice. I do wonder whether Amy started with page one and went forward chronologically or whether she chose pages randomly.

In flipping through the pages, I notice a few things but, mostly, how she’s not staying true to “erasure” or “blackout” poetry but creating her own hybrid art and style by adding her own words—as you pointed out with “unfortunately”— and, especially, images. I have to say I’m really taken with her drawings of women. Amy evokes women so well.

Claudia

Yes, it really is her own hybrid art and style. And such dazzling range. Thickets of torn words or images with the poem snaking through; original paintings of women, birds, trees; incredible collages: sheet music, magazine pics and words, crossword puzzles. I love, as Amy says in “The Parts of Parts”—way better title than Introduction— these “bits and pieces” are “frequently pulled from my office trash bin.”  And I love that, working directly on the book’s pages, “there are no do-overs.” A favorite (91): Amy’s painting of a woman in swirls of green and blue holding an old twin lens roll film camera. The words: “She brought magic with her everywhere.” This is Amy: her art, her words, her whole beautiful being.